"I had high hopes on the CAD and it does offer something quite unique - universal response.
But the truth is that this detector is unreliable and not the foundation you need for robust methods.
The reason is noise. I've been using these detectors for, I believe, seven years and they keep failing in terms of spikes, base line shifts and increasing noise. Cleaning is neither easy nor does it completely solve the problems. The complicated, but yet crude, system of gas flows, exhausts lines and drains still have many years of research ahead before the CAD should be considered as detector for a routine analysis.
I consider myself experienced in this field after many years of research on vaporizing systems, but in a contract lab you simply do not have time for days and weeks of troubleshooting. The knowledge and service from Thermo is also very limited.
Unfortunately I cannot recommend this detector at the moment.
"